Panama Papers: The Most Explosive Revelations from the Biggest Document Leak in History

In what is being called one of the biggest data leaks in history, an anonymous source leaker a trove of documents from a Panamanian law firm that has allegedly helped countless world leaders, titans of business, star athletes, and banks establish offshore accounts to hide their assets and avoid taxes.

The leak—including 11.5 million records going back 40 years—was first obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which said its reporters had obtained the documents confidentially, before sharing the information with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which then shared the papers with The Guardian and other outlets. The I.C.I.J. said in an article Sunday that the documents reveal offshore accounts of 140 politicians from around the world, including 12 current and former world leaders, 29 billionaires on *Fortune’*s list of the world’s 500 richest individuals, a famed soccer star, and a movie star famous for his action films. The data, leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, includes e-mails, corporate records, passwords, and identities behind shielded bank accounts, according to the I.C.I.J.

It is legal in many cases to establish offshore bank accounts. The trouble comes when corporations, wealthy individuals, politicians, and ne’er-do-wells use these accounts to conceal assets, avoid taxes, launder money, and hide certain transactions that may be illegal or, at the very best, frowned upon.

The news outlets have said they will release more documents and a more complete list of people and companies allegedly linked to the law firm in the coming days and months. The I.C.I.J. said that the data gives a “day-to-day, decade-by-decade look at how dark money flows through the global financial system, breeding crime and stripping national treasuries of tax revenues.”

In a statement provided to The Guardian, the law firm said it won’t discuss specific cases because of confidentially rules. But it steadfastly denied wrongdoing, saying, “we can confirm the parties in many of the circumstances you cite are not and have never been clients of Mossack Fonseca.” It also said that it is “regulated on multiple levels, often by overlapping agencies, and we have a strong compliance record. . . . The companies we incorporate are not being used for tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist finance or other illicit purposes.”

According to the news reports, the first wave of information reveals a web of offshore deals and loans tracing back to Russian president Vladimir Putin. While Putin’s name does not appear anywhere in the records, the documents show his longtime friends and associates channeling $2 billion through a seemingly purposefully obfuscated network that made them all fabulously wealthy. The Guardian reports that Putin’s best friend, the cellist Sergei Roldugin, holds shares in a number of companies and controls assets worth at least $100 million (though he told The New York Times he “[does not] have millions”). The documents also implicated__Yuri Kovalchuk__, the principal shareholder of Bank Rossiya, according to The Guardian.

Putin’s spokesman told reporters that the Kremlin received “a series of questions in a rude manner” from an organization that he said was trying to smear Putin. He called the leak an “information attack.”

Putin is far from the only world leader implicated in the nearly three terabytes of data. Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko; the families and associates of Muammar Gaddafi; Bashar al-Assad; the family of Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif; and Egypt’s former president, Hosni Mubarak, are all named, according to the BBC and The Guardian. Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who is expected to face calls for a “snap election” after it was revealed he had links to offshore accounts, stormed out of an interview after being asked about the so-called Panama Papers, according to The Guardian. The British newspaper also reported that six members of the House of Lords in London, families of eight current and former members of China’s politburo, a number of banks, and a key member of FIFA’s ethics committee turn up in the data dump (Vanity Fair has not reviewed all of the documents and has not independently verified their authenticity).

One leaked document reportedly shows a Mossack Fonseca partner admitting that “Ninety-five per cent of our work coincidentally consists in selling vehicles to avoid taxes.”

A number of world leaders and companies have started responding to the leak already, but as more information trickles out in the coming days, it is clear the fallout has just begun.

Here, Putin attempts to express skepticism using the classic facial gesture of an “eyebrow raise.” This maneuver proves difficult, and his face appears to use nontraditional muscles to assist the right eyebrow in its journey to the heavens.

Photo: By MATT DUNHAM/AFP/Getty Images.

Note the utter absence of under-eye circles. In fact, there appears to be a convex curve of cheek connecting the eyelid to the rounded jawbone-like egress.

Photo: By Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images.

The lines on the forehead, ever so slight, protrude gently like delicately raked valleys of sand in a tranquil Japanese garden.

Photo: By MATT DUNHAM/AFP/Getty Images.

“Seen at another angle/the lines have all gone/Clouds float, frightened by the sun.” That is a haiku about his face garden.

Photo: By MATT DUNHAM/AFP/Getty Images.

President Obama is seen looking for evidence of organic life in the area directly above Putin’s neck, but he won’t find any—just a perfectly spherical mass of flesh-colored Play-Doh covered in chalk dust.

Photo: By JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images.

Here, Putin attempts to express skepticism using the classic facial gesture of an “eyebrow raise.” This maneuver proves difficult, and his face appears to use nontraditional muscles to assist the right eyebrow in its journey to the heavens.

By MATT DUNHAM/AFP/Getty Images.

Note the utter absence of under-eye circles. In fact, there appears to be a convex curve of cheek connecting the eyelid to the rounded jawbone-like egress.

By Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images.

The lines on the forehead, ever so slight, protrude gently like delicately raked valleys of sand in a tranquil Japanese garden.

By MATT DUNHAM/AFP/Getty Images.

“Seen at another angle/the lines have all gone/Clouds float, frightened by the sun.” That is a haiku about his face garden.

By MATT DUNHAM/AFP/Getty Images.

President Obama is seen looking for evidence of organic life in the area directly above Putin’s neck, but he won’t find any—just a perfectly spherical mass of flesh-colored Play-Doh covered in chalk dust.